An Echo of Adventure
by BibbityBoppityBoots
Summary: Left alone with only the echoes of his past, Harry Potter is left to open the only door left to him. Upon the threshold he finds himself somewhere else entirely. Familiar yet different but still full of echoes of adventure.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N - So this is my first time trying to write a HP fanfiction… and also my first time trying to write a Marvel one. As such any feedback is appreciated! It's worth mentioning that the way this chapter and possibly even the early parts of this story will be confusing at points. This is done on purpose but hopefully only the intended amount of confusion.**

**Anyways let me know what you think!**

**1**

Harry walked through the ashes of memory, air still thick with dust and _death_ even centuries after he had last been there. Centuries since anyone had been there, he supposed idly, feet tapping gently barefoot over cold stone, avoiding the cracks between slabs and the blackened soot of friends and enemies.

With every stride came echoes of laughter in warm hallways, lit by the crackling of torch laden sconces and the gentle rumbling of braziers littered around the place.

_Come on Harry_

His body followed the twists and turns of the corridors almost absent-mindedly, a distracted air about him as he hummed along to the gentle lullaby he vaguely remembered from the kind blond haired Moon. Even as Harry stepped out over a sheer drop of many floors a staircase slid underneath his feet with a gentle click, no matter how many years it had been the old castle always protected its charges; keeping them safe.

_I've got you_

Without any decrease in pace or acknowledgement that he had just narrowly avoided a quite painful fall, the boy turned man swept down the stairs, ever wild hair shifting around his head as he slid down the bannister of the next. A gleeful laugh clawing its way from his throat as his speed whipped his hair about his face.

Harry stumbled to a stop at the end of the railing, almost sprawling haphazardly into and likely through an old dust covered door. He couldn't really see where he was going of course, the torches and light sources had long fallen cold and empty, a long with the classrooms and dorms and all the hundreds of paintings that had hung from high walls; but that didn't stop him from happily walking around, almost skipping with every other step.

_Let's go_

At last he came to a great cavernous hall, the rafters of which cut across the black expanse of a clear night sky. What had once been a lustrous array of stars and cloud and enchanted flying candles now reflected the rest of the castle as a hole. Cold and void.

Between two such stone rafters a single star glimmered brightly, the only light source amongst bottomless darkness. Yet reflected in Harry's bright green eyes he thought that there had never been anything quite so beautiful as that single shining blip, for with it he remembered even if only a little. Another echo, this time of sparkling blue eyes filled with belief and love.

_My dear boy_

Collapsing in a not so elegant fashion onto one of the few benches that remained upright, Harry remained focused on this singular light.

"Is it time yet?" he murmured, blowing little bits of mist into the cold air, "An adventure for the ages Crooked Nose. You told me I would know when it was time."

Only silence greeted his whispers, echoes dispersing as he looked away from the star for the first time. Seeing the wreckage that filled what had once been the great hall of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Tables smashed and flung to all corners of the large room, benches shattered, windows gone or broken in so many ways they might as well have been. Ashes lay strewn across the floor in such large volumes that practically the entirety of it was covered by at least some blackened motes.

He lay a hand almost soothingly on the oaken wood of a nearby table, almost hearing Hogwarts groan around him in strain. This was what had drawn him back. From his own back-garden somewhere in the middle of nowhere Harry had felt it.

The death rattles of his first home. Without students to power its wards the castle had had enough magical power saved up within its massive core of a ward stone to last itself thousands of years; but the damage done by the Skull People and the Snake Man in breaching the wards had reflected on the ward scheme and core. In its greatest and futile efforts to prevent harm from coming to its inhabitants, the halfway sentient building had expended large parts of its reserves. A measly few hundred years after the battle that had hurt both of them so badly, Harry was watching his only friend die.

_I read about this place you know_

Harry slowly closed his eyes and reached deep, towards the great flickering ball of power and energy that had stayed unused for so long. It snipped at him like a live animal, a snowy bird with great big eyes full of intelligence he had really thought it ought not to have. But behind its annoyance at not being used it sang a clear melody of joy, of barely restrained passion and longing for freedom. Harry frowned. He couldn't even remember the words anymore; a dull ache and static filled his head the harder he tried to remember.

But it didn't matter. The energy coiled deep inside him remembered, the magic _remembered_. And with a gentle sigh large swathes of it flowed out of him, its actions following his unsaid – unspeakable – commands. With the familiarity of an old friend, torches appeared and tables gently snapped themselves back together. Shards of wood from benches and other furniture fluttered on a non-existent breeze around the hall as they settled back into place and clipped together like a puzzle that had only just remembered it was meant to be completed. The ancient golden podium righted itself, dents and scorch marks fading away like they had never been.

Harry felt the pleased thrum beat gently against the fingertips that he still had hovering on the table's surface with a featherlight touch. For just this moment, this single snippet of time, amongst the ashes that still coated many surfaces the old castle felt whole again. For the first time in a long time magic flew through the grounds of Hogwarts, singing and twisting in the air and all was right in his world again. For once his memories and thoughts began to un-fog and Harry smiled because he remembered and revelled in his magic and marginally more real echoes of his once friends and family. Harry could recall their names and the glorious magic they had done together and-

_Avada Kedavra_

And in a bright flash of green behind his eyes it was gone. The clammy and cold grasping hands of the static and smoke that shrouded his mind returned with a vengeance, clawing and clasping at everything they could. With nary a whimper Harry's magic snapped back into him and, although the repairs stayed, the torches and candles slowly went out one by one, eventually and inevitably casting the hall back into its original darkness.

Finally, the solitary star in the artificial night sky sputtered, dimmed and went out. One last heartbeat thumped gently against his fingertips; somehow conveying a depth of love and care for the boy who was no longer a boy but still found his home here within its walls. It was acceptance and an apology.

Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived, was left alone with nothing but the cold, the dark and a single tear running down his cheek.

-o-

It was with trembling limbs that Harry approached the great fireplace near the entrance way. The wizards and witches who had maintained the magical fireplace teleportation system (his mind fuzzed even thinking that much about it) had long since died. No longer maintained, what had once been a vastly complicated grid of canal like passaged filled with magic had dried up into unusable troughs. That's what it seemed like to Harry at least.

He stared at the fireplace long and hard, willing it to let him through. The ruddy thing just stared back at him accusingly as a pile of desiccated wood could at least. After a few moments of deliberation Harry found himself hunched over the mantlepiece, almost tripping over the logs as he got there.

"Ministry of-" his voice rang out clearly even as the fuzzy feeling intensified in his head. He grunted, "Well that's inconvenient."

Slowly he closed his eyes, pushing forward an echo to the front of his mind. A great chair, covered in chains, a pink toad, shelves upon shelves upon _shelves_ of glowing crystalline balls and finally a great stone archway. Or rather something that looked like stone, acted like stone but was really something _other_. Harry felt a pull at his navel, a single dried out root in the grid filling with his power. With no sound other than swoosh of green tongues of flame Harry Potter disappeared from the ground of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for the final time with tightly shut eyes.

When his eyes opened after admittedly dizzying spinning feeling of the magic fireplace, like travelling down rapids without a boat or a life jacket, Harry found himself planted face down in decades old soot and cobwebs.

He rose with a mighty splutter, puffing out little clouds of ashy mites and webbing.

"Not the most pleasant way to travel." He chuckled weakly to himself.

It was perhaps two hundred years ago that Harry had started doing that. At first, he remembered in the echoes, the few survivors had tried to help him; to talk with him. That had been fun. But they faded away all too soon, without the power sources they needed age had crept up on them ever faster.

Eventually they had withered before his very eyes. The Moon, The Sun, The scant few Fires that had remained. He knew the others had gone on without him, to their next journey and adventure while Harry was left alone. Even the non-magical places were gone; some wiped out by the great war that had so completely destroyed his world others by non-magical means. Self-destruction and human nature were one and the same he supposed.

But for Harry he was left untouched by time. No wrinkles or sagging skin, no greying hair or failing health. Completely unchanged he looked the exact same as he had at twenty years old. Unkempt hair, no facial hair to speak of (much to his consternation and a lanky Fire's amusement), reasonably tall too he liked to think. The only benefit of being alone, Harry had found, was that for once he was always the tallest in the room.

So it was that The-Boy-Who-Time-Always-Seemed-To-Forget-About entered what had once been the British Ministry of Magic.

_I killed Sirius Black_

The echoes were strong here too. Even as Harry brushed the last of the dust from his hair, he could hear them, see them and almost touch them. From the most brilliant of golden hues, to the most rotten green and browns they danced around him, leaving the dust undisturbed as they pirouetted through normal daily life and then the final battle.

Flashes of the most verdant shades of green and blue and red shot through the air. One by one the echoes died out, forms slipping into glowing particles that eventually fell into the ash that they had become today. And Harry was alone again.

However, the pull in his navel hadn't disappeared after he arrived. He felt it even now, a gentle tug towards a great golden elevator that rested near the corner of the atrium he had arrived in. Harry had always been a fan of following his gut, much to The Book's annoyance and all the others' reluctant amusement.

When he entered the elevator his hand almost rose by itself to press the very lowest button. "The Department of Mysteries" it read out clearly, coincidentally right next to a bright red sign of "_DANGER. NO UNAUTHORISED PERSONEL_". Harry poked his head out briefly to check the coast was clear, glaring at the dust mites on the floor.

Even as the elevator began to descend, they didn't deign to respond, which was really quite rude of them Harry thought.

_Please, take me! Leave him!_

He shook his head blearily, the closer he got to his destination the fuzzier he felt. Must have gotten some of that dust into his head he thought idly. By the time the contraption finished its descent Harry's head was almost horizontal as he tried to smack the side of his head to get anything out of his ear.

Nothing came.

With a ding the rattily old gates swung open to reveal a long dark corridor with many equally dark doors. As Harry walked through it his bare feet left feet-shaped markings of ash that he had latched on in the atrium, contrasting heavily with the near black marble floors and walls that almost seemed to absorb light into them.

Harry ignored all the doors to his side, his sight set on the one at the very end, the one his stomach was almost dragging him towards by that point. When he lay his hand on it the first thing he noticed was the cold. It seeped through his skin, straight through the bone and into his soul. Whatever was on the other side of that door was not right.

Almost like Harry himself.

The door opened with the slightest push, not letting out a single squeak or groan and within was a large circular room. Its rocky walks seemed to have been hued naturally by the elements, walls that seamlessly curved down and around onto the floor leading to a small hill. Atop the hill stood his destination, and he found that he had always known where he was going.

A great smooth "stone" archway towered high above his head, looming menacingly. Harry shivered, the cold was definitely unnatural but what really unnerved him enough to slightly pierce his fogged mind was the absolute silence. In the rest of the ministry there had also been no noise true but still, everything about that archway was still. But he could feel it, just beyond his senses a tapestry of noise, a cacophony emanating from inside that arch. He couldn't hear it but he _feel_ it.

On unsteady legs Harry ascended the mound, fingers trailing loosely over jagged rocks at his side. Even his sense of touch seemed muted somehow in this room that shouldn't exist, in view of this arch – this doorway! – that shouldn't exist. When finally he rested one hand on the thing at the top of that hill.

_Run_

_Go_

_Come_

_Leave_

_Die_

_LIVE_

The echoes burst into his head clearer than they had ever been, almost memories. Of bushy hair and books, of flaming hair and flying brooms, of gold and moons and more. Of friends. Of _family_.

Harry's eyes had been forced closed with the influx of voices and images but when he opened it he thought he could see it. Just a little bit. Around the base of the hill stood echoes, ghosts of a better time. He could almost make out their faces, just too slightly blurred out by the multicoloured glow of magic. He knew they were watching over him, they always had been and when he looked back at the archway he could see it. A door of undulating power and inconsistent form, a pathway.

With one last look back at what had been his family, Harry Potter, just a boy, opened the doors and stepped through.

_Into the next great adventure_


	2. Chapter 2

**2**

Harry wondered if this was what stepping over the edge of the world felt like. The archway as it turned out had led to a sheer drop, and he had fallen, flipping end over end past through a nebulous tunnel or every colour imaginable and some Harry couldn't wrap his head around. The tunnel twisted and turned, at some point he could almost swear he was falling back up somehow, if there even were any up or down in this place.

Eventually the hues gave way to panels of still images, and Harry was promptly brought out of one type of nausea into another as the unmoving photos reminded him of a dark place under the stairs. It was only when the still-life images began to shift again into the more familiar and homelike moving images that Harry was able to revive himself from the sad and empty and dead echoes of his past.

The glimpses that he saw instantly caught his attention even as he was twisted into looking at another one; brief flashes of a man in a suit made out of metal spiralled into a small boy trying to sign up for the army.

Glimpses became sight and sound and _pain_ as he remembered gamma radiation coursing through his body – and since when did he know what that was? – and he remembered a harsh upbringing as a soviet spy becoming something more, something that he – she? – could believe in. Harry found himself at a house in a quiet clearing, shooting arrow an arrow though another arrow into a target hanging from a tree branch; he could hear the call of his wife, could see the missions he shared with a red-headed woman and the friendship that bloomed like the most beautiful flower he had ever seen. Finally, he saw a different world entirely, of towering golden towers and an ancient throne room. Of a century long childhood growing alongside his polar opposite of a brother and meeting his warrior friends and losing _everything_. And he couldn't lift it, that hammer.

And then Harry-Tony-Steve-Bruce-Natasha-Clint-Thor screamed, overwhelmed by five senses seven times over. Swamped by the unknown yet familiar he reached desperately at his power to push it away and get it out get it out _get it out_.

It ended as suddenly as it began. The cacophony of voices and noises and sights and pain dropped into an eerie silence that suffocated Harry, even as he was unceremoniously flung onto a cold white marble tiled floor. He sat up groggily, shaking off the surprising lack of pain despite the crunches he had heard but stopped when he realised that the hazy curtain of dizziness and piercing pain that had cloaked his mind for centuries was gone.

And he _remembered_.

Ignoring the information on the unknown yet now inexplicably familiar people that had seemingly be dumped into his head and instead went straight into his occlumency controlled mind. He flew through the pristine and ancient great doors of Hogwarts that he could never willingly have forgotten, whipping straight towards the library where he kept all of his memories.

And there, where previously he might have only been greeted by a great static fuzz that whirled around his ears and dizzied him, Harry saw row upon row of gleaming, multicoloured, actually _there_ books. Without thinking he walked from bookshelf to book shelf, fingers trailing over spines, brushing over titles and with each touch he remembered.

_A blond-haired wisp of a girl with near glowing silvery eyes, Moon. No, _Luna.

_Once bushy, now only mildly curled, brown locks peeking over the top of a book. The book drops revealing a smiling face with eyes of melted chocolate. _Hermione.

Harry couldn't stop, even if he had wanted to. He remembered it all, the good and the bad. The highs and the lows.

And it was _beautiful_.

-o-

It felt like years had passed by the time Harry had pulled himself from his mind, reliving every moment in painful – joyous – clarity. To Harry it had almost felt like a movie, something that he was strangely disconnected from; he knew that he had spent centuries after his last complete memory just wandering aimlessly around a deserted world, but that awful static messed with everything. Past the shelves full of pristine memories Harry had found many more bookshelves that were partially collapsed, or even fully over-turned. Their appearance, he could now realise, were like that of a television without signal and trying to access the memories only led to ear splitting white noise and disjointed fragments of cold and lonely and _death_.

Needless to say Harry had quickly left those memories alone.

However, as he left his mindscape he found himself bewildered. He was back at King's Cross Station, _again_. The brightly lit and eerily empty train station platform was just the same as he remembered it. Nothing moved, there was no wind and no people and suddenly Harry was reminded of the last time he had been there. A meeting with a blue-eyed grandfather that wasn't really Dumbledore but still had those same kind twinkling eyes and a propensity for giving helpful if vague advice.

Part of Harry hoped that he would find him there to keep him company again, a familiar face in the sea of white marble and empty too bright lights. But as the boy who lived too long turned, he found something else there instead.

Standing by the edge of the platform was a figure cloaked like a wraith in black cloth, folding over and over into itself like ocean waves in a storm, rolling in a constant non-existent wind. It was unnatural, it simply could not register to Harry's brain. To him it was like trying to look at someone under an extremely powerful notice-me-not charm, its form was unfathomable. For all that Harry tried to look at it, its form was ever different from one blink to the next. Humanoid then not, tall and then short, thin and then wide. It was in the end, much more like what Harry had expected the first time he had come here.

"Well, hello there," Harry's own voice startled him, no longer filled with the childishness that had previously been laced in it, "I had thought I'd meet you quite some time ago."

Death stared. Harry stared back.

"I don't mean to rush you, but this is really getting terribly awkward."

Death kept staring.

"Right well-"

Harry cut off as Death turned without as much as a by-your-leave and glided away. It didn't seem to walk at least, not with its constantly changing shape. Its cloak however remained unaffected by the quick turn, still just rippling at a consistent pace. He took it as his que to follow it, even as it didn't slow down while he was contemplating what to do.

The silence was stifling, only broken by the even tread of Harry's feet on the cold stone floor; the ever-changing figure ahead seemingly floating a half inch above the floor at all times, the ends of its cloak just barely above trailing on the ground. Harry tried to open his mouth to probe for information. What had those visions that he had seen been? Where were they going? It was funny, Harry supposed, that he no longer bothered to ask if he was dead, fuzzy memories of centuries alone and confused flitted through his head. No, death hadn't been what he was afraid of for a long time.

Harry was so lost in his thoughts that he almost crashed into the back of Death, something that he had a very strong feeling would not have been a very fun experience for him. Again, the stilted silence choked the words in his throat as he was about to apologise. Even more so, this close to the shifting, folding back of Death, Harry could feel the deep boned chill that emanated from its back. It was like ice had spread across his chest and was spreading further into his limbs and hard in tingling tendrils of frost. He decided it was in his best interest to step away.

Death itself remained unmoving in front of him, its 'face' away from him. Eventually, after another moment of empty silence Harry looked around him, head poking around Death's side. He gasped slightly.

In front of them stood a great column that rose all the way to the ceiling and on its sides lay the signs for platform 9 and platform 10. It seemed like a lifetime ago that Harry had last seen this place, the gateway that had saved him from a dark cupboard and an empty loveless home- that had never been _home_. He hadn't thought he'd ever see it again, memories of flaming hair and closing his eyes and running into the unknown filled his head and without realising a single solitary tear trailed from one of his eyes.

After the silence continued and Death remained unmoving in front of him for an uncomfortable period of time Harry spoke up.

"I don't understand," it was with uncomfortable unease that he noted the quiver in his voice, "What do you want from me? Why am I here?"

Death remained utterly impassive, shrouded shifting figure unmoving. Harry quickly stepped around him, keeping a what he hoped was respectful distance from the… deity? He couldn't honestly say he understood what the figure was, only that it was mildly-maybe-definitely-terrifying.

Still the silence stretched on, Death seemed to have no desire to break it – if it even could – and Harry felt the ice clawing at his throat whenever he tried to force words through it. Despite this he pushed through it, truly uncomfortable with the vacuum and confusion and oh god he was so lost.

Eventually however, Death moved. Slowly, with the sound of cracking bones a long appendage, he couldn't call it an arm, rose to point in the direction of the column. Between one blink and the next, the stone brick wall flickered into a rolling sea of green light, just like the Veil that he had stepped through to get here.

"You want me to go through another one of those?" disbelief drenched his words, "Are you kidding? Why in my right mind would I volunteer to do that? It took me centuries to consider it when I _wasn't_."

Somehow, despite the impassiveness and lack of general features Harry got the feeling that Death was rolling its 'eyes' at him. He looked back and forth between the cloaked figure and the swirling mist-like gateway.

"I'm going to need some explanation you know. I don't speak pointing and ominous silence."

Death was quiet for several moments more before its head swivelled towards him, accompanied by the sound of tyres on gravel.

YOU ARE AN INTENSELY ANNOYING MAN

A blast of voices and noises in the shape of words scratched through his mind like fingernails on a blackboard. Different accents and languages, some that sounded distinctly not human echoed together through his mind and were somehow coherent.

Wincing through the pain Harry still smirked slightly, it seemed he had finally cracked Death itself. That'd be a story to tell the kids one day, although he supposed that that the likely of that might be questionable considering his current company.

"Oh, you speak now! Wonderful, finally some conversation." Harry's voice dripped with sarcasm, "I was really going to have to leave a bad review for this station. Last time I was greeted by this flamboyant old man with twinkly eyes, this really seems like a downgrade."

Death returned to its silence, though Harry could somehow tell that the pitch black under the hood radiated with annoyance. He almost felt like it was glaring at him without any discernible eyes or even a face. However, after almost thirty seconds of the continued stilted silence, he had turned back to study the portal with a thoughtful face.

"So, where does this one go?" Harry turned back to Death and cocked his head slightly – almost demanding an answer this time, "Back… home?"

For a few moments more Death maintained its stoic silence.

NO

Harry blinked curiously. Not home then, but where? He stepped closer to the portal and as he did so he could hear whispers brushing against his mind. Untold numbers of unknown voices speaking in many different languages blew gently through his ears; he recognised English in there, of many different varieties.

"Not home but a different Earth?"

Turning back to Death, Harry immediately noticed that something was different with the entity. Its form had stopped changing, stuck in a much more definite feminine form that was wrapped tighter in its cloak than before and from the darkness within the hood a human skull had emerged, empty sockets staring blankly.

"I didn't think you would understand so quickly." It – she – said. Her voice held an undercurrent of bottomless, unknowable power. It was human, but also distinctly _not_.

Harry blinked deliberately again.

"You _spoke_. I mean actually spoke this time, what's going on?"

He took a step back towards her but froze when a shudder wracked her frame and she started shifting again. Stepping back towards the shifting mass of green, Death seemed to stabilise again, returning to its feminine, skull faced form.

"You stand between two planes, _master_. Mine," She gestured idly to the portal, "And yours." She turned and waved at the general area of King's Cross Station, the bleached white stone walls and floors and the various massive columns.

Harry had paused in his examination at the use of the word master, century old memories that still felt like they were just yesterday flooded his mind. Hermione telling him the tale, the hours spent deliberating over the snitch that became the ring, find them all.

The wand, the stone and the cloak.

"But I threw them away. I _broke_ the wand." His frustrated voice broke the quiet air.

Death just shook her head, he thought it looked rather sad.

"My Hallows aren't just toys for you to break and throw away like a child." She raised her hands, one lifting up a slightly torn segment of her cloak, "A piece of my cloak to hide from my sight," She waved out one of her skeletal hands, it was missing a finger, "A bone of myself to harness my power," With the same hand she gently grasped the hood and brought it back slightly, in one eye socket there glowed what to Harry appeared to be a resurrection stone. The other was suspiciously empty, "And an eye, to see a little of what I see. You cannot simply _throwaway_ pieces of Death. Not when they have been reunited."

"Reunited but not mastered?" Harry raised an eyebrow having not missed the venom behind her earlier words.

She scoffed, "It is not for any being to master me. I am no real being to enslave, I am a force, all seeing and all-knowing." Death looked imperiously down at him, "Holding pieces of me allows you to harness pieces of my power not enslave it."

Harry laughed happily, "Great!" When Death cocked her head in mild surprise he continued, "I never wanted this, to be master or leader over anyone, let alone a primordial force of nature," He chuckled quietly to himself again before his face shifted, becoming more sombre and downturned, "Why not let me die then? I'm sure you would've been yearning to take back your esteemed _master_."

"Foolish child, did you not listen?" Her voice dripped with mockery, "The Hallows as you knew them are no more. When you brought them together you became them, and they became you. My finger became your finger, my eye yours and my cloth your skin. I could not take you because I could not see you, fool."

"You don't seem to be having any problem _now_." Harry replied, his voice dry and bitter.

For a second he almost thought he saw her eye blink in disbelief.

"Are you truly this stupid or is this a special occasion? You are in the space between life and death, this area is mine, there is no living here. Only death. Only me." If anything the patronising tone was stronger now, like she was talking to a toddler.

"Fine, _fine_. You still haven't told me why I'm here. You've got me, finally! Come and reap me, or whatever it is you apparently do."

Here Death became morose, she slouched slightly and looked away, "Do not think I wouldn't like to, child. Seemingly as much as you want me to." She shook her head, straightened and turned her head to face him again, "But. _But_. Loath as I am to admit it, I have need of your aid." Clearly the words were foul poison on her lips, or teeth Harry supposed."

He stared at her. Blinked. Then blinked again.

"No."

Harry's answer was short and unequivocal. Whatever the problem was, he wanted no part in it. Had he not done enough? Were the centuries alone after sacrificing everything not enough?

"They are enough, Harry." Death used his name for the first time, her tone the gentlest it had ever been, "But something – some_one_ is coming in this realm. I cannot explain, to do such would break the rules and I am pushing them enough as it is."

Harry scowled, "Everyone always says it's enough but it never is. The only time it ever stopped was when everyone was dead, and even then I could _still hear them_. Just let me die, I'm done and I've been done since I tore my soul apart. I'm finished and I'm tired."

There was definitely pity in Death now and a deep, cutting sorrow, "Again you think me so cruel. Nothing would please me more at this moment than to bring you into my embrace," Her voice's sombre qualities almost resembled a mother talking to her child, "I am the end, what awaits at the end of every journey. My embrace is the final rest and there is none who deserve it from your realm quite as much as you."

"Then why-" Harry started angrily before Death cut him off.

"Because others yet need you. Because I do. I am sorry," Her voice was decidedly pained, "I am unable to say more. I cannot offer you rest, not yet."

Harry just shook his head.

"I am sick and tired of empty apologies. But you won't take no for an answer will you?" He laughed bitterly against the irony, "I doubt you ever have."

"I cannot accept your refusal," Death reiterated, "There is no other way, no train to take you anywhere this time." She continued after a long pause, "There is more."

He scoffed violently, "_More_? What more can you ask from me? There is no more of me to take!"

"It is not so much a matter of taking as returning. While you are here, in my realm where everything is one your soul is whole, the lost part returned." He paled and Death nodded, "I see you understand. By passing back into a realm of the living, your soul will be torn again."

Harry thought back to the fuzzy memories and the wrecked bookshelves in his mindscape, to the centuries of cold solitude in which he had been there but not really. To the loneliness surrounded only by echoes of his past and a desolate future. Finally, to the pain of his very essence being torn asunder in their desperate last attempt to kill the horcrux that had latched onto his soul.

"I can't. Not again, _never_ again."

Panic started to set in, his eyes were wide, and he seemed to be moments away from stumbling away from the hooded figure of Death.

"You can and you must, Harry Potter." Death's voice was unmoving, even while remaining sorrowful, "Such is your fate, loath as I know you are to the idea. You are still needed."

Harry stopped and closed his eyes, focusing on taking deep breaths and trying to use occlumency enforced control to reign in his panic. It only partially succeeded, his breaths were still shuddering and laboured.

"Will- Will it hurt?" He asked, but when Death made to answer he held up his hand, "No, no I don't want to know." A heavy, forlorn sigh followed, "No rest for the wicked I suppose."

The last part was muttered to himself, in an almost wistful tone but it was clear Death heard. Perhaps wisely she chose not to comment, as Harry opened his eyes and turned to face the writing mass of green that brought back too many bad memories.

As he took one faltering step forward after another, he could feel it this time. His mind bent and twisted, already coming apart at the seams under the duress of Death's pull; could already hear the echoes coming back to envelop him.

One voice in particular came back, flaming ginger hair and a busy mothering attitude that he knew at some point he had loved. It draped around him with the smell of a home away from home and first meetings in a new world.

"Good luck, Harry Potter." Death called from behind him.

The boy laughed one last sad little laugh but didn't look back.

"I don't think I know who that is anymore."

_Best to do it at a bit of a run if you're nervous_

And so, he did.

**A/N: So yeah this took ages and I can't really promise any faster updates in the future. On the bright side I had at least 10,000 words worth fully planned out before this, but it was taking ages so thought I'd post this at least. I figured everyone would prefer this over a much longer wait but who knows.**

**Anyway, please let me know what you think! Feedback is always welcome.**


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